Rating: 
Summary: Best modern author!
Review: I have not been so delighted with the raw talent and sensual imagery of a writer since JK Huysmans. The fact that this woman is writing, publishing, and being appreciated in the modern age is gratifying, and in my opinion she can't write fast enough to keep me satisfied. Anyone who enjoys magical realism as was made famous by Garcia-Marquez will find Winterson infinitely more lush in her style, and human in her subjects.
Rating: 
Summary: The Worst Book I Have Ever Read
Review: I have not read Winterson before so I will not generalise on her overall talent. Winterson's pretentions to philosophical and mystical profundity - her continual reference to the subjectivity of time and space, to our fluidity of self - were merely simplified rants on postmodern platitudes. Her ridiculous feminist ideology - ie, women are good, men are bad - is a backward step for feminism. I am shocked that such trash is published and that intelligent people are supposedly reading this.
Rating: 
Summary: I Liked Others Better
Review: I like her as an author, but this was not one of my favorites.
Rating:
Summary: This book is horrible!
Review: I love Jeanette Winterson, and this probably my favorite of her novels. She's really brilliant in this one. It's worth reading the whole book just for her poetic descriptions of lofty metaphysical ideas of time and recurrence. The author conjures such an incredible vision in this book. It's startling.
Rating:
Summary: What the Hell Does "Sexing the Cherry" Mean?
Review: I love Jeanette Winterson, and this probably my favorite of her novels. She's really brilliant in this one. It's worth reading the whole book just for her poetic descriptions of lofty metaphysical ideas of time and recurrence. The author conjures such an incredible vision in this book. It's startling.
Rating: 
Summary: a time travelling, character driven fantasy romp
Review: I read this book for the first time shortly after it was published and returned to it this summer as I often return after a few years to books that engage me deeply. While I am prepared to acknowledge that Winterson has certain pretensions as a writer, she spins a whopping good yarn. This is a book for readers who are patient, adventurous and ready to give themselves up to a complex and entertaining tale.
Rating:
Summary: A wasted opportunity, her arrogance suppresses the ideas.
Review: If you are the type to read a book and simply accept that the message is the important thing then this book is a winner for you. If you are easily offended by arrogance, pretention and over emphasis of a key theme then leave it on the shelf. The dog-woman is unquestionably the most beautifully hideous creation I have read from a writer of this century, and the linear nature of time is expressed well to begin with. Jeanette Winterson seems to get carried away however, and in her arrogance looses much of the subtlety that flavours the book to begin with so well. Re-reading this, it is her stubborn heterophobia that rings in the ears over any beautiful sounds she may have been making. This is disappointing from an obviously talented woman.
Rating:
Summary: fabulesque!
Review: It's been a few months since I read this book, but I want to comment on it and correct a few earlier comments made by others. The setting is neither medieval nor Elizabethan; it is the Cromwellian and Restoration periods of the mid-17th century in England, if indeed it is anywhere concrete at all. The story's hero, Jordan, weaves in and out of time and myth, encountering the wonders of the new world and the Twelve Dancing Princesses of the fairytale (each of whom have the opportunity to describe their failed marriages, some in surprisingly - suspiciously - modern ways). His foster-mother, The Dog Woman, is an astounding creation. Winterson manages to whimsically weave all these threads together; however, this book doesn't *quite* rate a 10. Most readers will be a bit bewildered by the time-travel near then end, and one certainly smells a Woolf in retrospect, but the trip is so much well-crafted and linguistically compelling fun that they shouldn't mind. One does not, after all, ask a magician how they do t
Rating:
Summary: Sexing the Cherry
Review: One of the first things that struck me about this book is how it was so similar to Virginia Woolf's 'Orlando'. Both books are based on the premise that time is flexible, rather than a linear progression, and both combine fantastical elements with historical fiction. They even both use the Thames as an allegory for main themes. Whether this similarity will put off other readers, I don't know, but I felt that it did not detract from the merit of 'Sexing the Cherry'.This is foremostly a grown-ups fairy tale - there are dancing princesses, a giant woman, magic, towns dying of love. Set (mainly) in England at the time of Cromwell, the tale is told in alternating sections by Dog-Woman (the giant woman) and Jordan. Dog Woman, who is a loner living with her many dogs, discovered Jordan as a child on the bank of the Thames. They have some amazing experiences, though this is what you would expect to happen to such an amazing woman. This is a grown-up's fairy tale in that there is a lot of sex and violence (this book is not for the squemish!) Winterson explores some very 'heavy' topics, such as the construction of identity and reality, and the realities of time. However, this doesn't read as a deep book - it is beautifully written in places, and could be enjoyed for the prose alone. There are modern day characters included in this story, and I didn't feel that this worked as well as the historical characters. However, this is a very good book. It is not particulary long, so even if you don't enjoy it, at least you haven't wasted your time wading through a thick tome! I would definately suggest that anyone interested gives it a go.
Rating:
Summary: Winterson's most pompous book to date
Review: Perhaps Jeanette Winterson knew the weaknesses of this book when she gave it the suggestive title. There is not much redeeming value to this pretentious work. Winterson, notorious literary snob, seems to have patched this story together out of half-baked plotlines and unfinished anecdotes of empty spiritual bombast. Read "Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit" instead.
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